The Ford government is putting new bike lanes and any installed in the past half-decade on notice but has promised it will pay the costs if cities have to tear out routes.
The Ford government is promising to pay the cost of removing bike lanes from major city streets that fail to meet its unannounced criteria as it ploughs ahead with a plan to limit biking infrastructure and rip out some routes.
I hate this and a lot of other decisions the Ford gouvernement has made, but they also greenlit the biggest expansion of GO Transit ever. Plus, a ton of other public transit projects.
How useful really is transit if everyone has to drive to their train station? The fact they greenlit so much rail should mean they should be fighting for more bike lanes, not less.
Not necessarily. In my home city a few years back there was a big initiative to install bike lanes, city council was proudly declaring “X kilometers of bike lanes installed.” Turns out that was literally the only metric they cared about, the number of kilometers they could announce, and as a result the lanes were added wherever it was easiest and cheapest to turn an existing road lane into a bike lane. Most of them weren’t being used, they were just wasting space. An election or two later a major study was done and many of the bike lanes were turned back into car lanes again.
They should be clear about the criteria, but if a similar situation has happened it makes sense to roll some of it back.
Over here in Victoria, people have been complaining non stop since the start of putting in protected bike lanes. We have a really good connected network now, but at the start when the first lane went in, there was such an uproar about this useless short lane that went nowhere before the network had even been built. It was pretty amusing to watch the idiots speak out like that about the short lane.
In our case the lanes were in for quite a few years. As I mentioned, we cycled through a couple of city councils before enough of the politicians that had spearheaded the initiative were gone and the new ones could do a study without feeling like their reputations were on the line.
And I should note, for those who are downvoting me, that I’m simply describing what happened. I ride my bike, I like bike lanes, but if bike lanes get put in bad places then popular support for bike lanes in general is harmed. If you like bike lanes too then you should be advocating for them to be placed where it’s optimal for bike lanes to exist, not to place them in every possible location regardless of utility.
Ford yet again seems to be the center of some questionable decisions that favour big corporations as opposed to the people of Ontario.
Some items include:
Trying to change zoning on protected green belt land to allow developers to build single family home subdivisions. The land was purchased by developers in anticipation to the change in zoning.
Releasing a liquor map to help individuals find alcohol, while a liquor stike was happening (somewhat a slap in the face for union workers TBH). This coincided with his push to get liquor into convince stores and corner stores while at the same time breaking a contract that would have expired in two years costing tax payers millions.
Killing a proposed recycling programs that would benefit the people of Ontario by making stores responsible to accept back recyclable materials. This program was ment to shift the cost of recycling from tax payers to corporations and business in a effort to push them to limit the amount of packaging used for products. The program was to function very similar to the Ontario Beer Store that takes back cans and glass bottles. (Unfortunately the future of the beer store recycling program is also up in the air)
Potential covering up of the completion schedule for new transite lines that were scheduled to be completed 2020.
The sudden shutdown of the Ontario Science Center due to a structural report stating a small section of roof might collapse within one of the buildings. The report presented no immediate danger but press conferences and Ford himself called the building a death trap. Many schools roofs in Ontario were built in the same way and are nearing end of life, no action or plan has been put forward.
The Ontario Place being leased and redeveloped into a luxury spa. This also coincided with the Ontario Science Center being moved to Ontario Place. The reasoning for this is that the Ford Government is contractually obligated to build a mega parking garage for the luxury spa. To justify the building of the garage it is to be shared between the new location for the Ontario Science Center and the Spa.
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So we’re basically back to year one Ford who tore down wind turbines at taxpayer expense because they annoyed him.
Definitely remember this one as well.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5368745
Honesty I have no idea how all his ideas are 100% in the complete opposite direction.
Don’t worry, we’re restarting all those projects as the biggest investment in green energy ever!
We could have had those things years ago for very little investment, but that doesn’t sound good to voters.
Nothing screams “small government” like provincial overreach into municipal politics, amirite
Do bike lanes really cause more traffic congestion? Here’s what the research says
Where are all the fucking journalists and pundits screaming “Who is going to pay for that?” at this?
We can’t afford to build rail but we can afford to pointlessly rip out bike lanes and still not fix traffic.
I hate this and a lot of other decisions the Ford gouvernement has made, but they also greenlit the biggest expansion of GO Transit ever. Plus, a ton of other public transit projects.
How useful really is transit if everyone has to drive to their train station? The fact they greenlit so much rail should mean they should be fighting for more bike lanes, not less.
I’m in total agreement with you about supporting bike lanes, I’m just pointing out the fallacy of saying, “We can’t afford to build rail.”
This is insanity
Not necessarily. In my home city a few years back there was a big initiative to install bike lanes, city council was proudly declaring “X kilometers of bike lanes installed.” Turns out that was literally the only metric they cared about, the number of kilometers they could announce, and as a result the lanes were added wherever it was easiest and cheapest to turn an existing road lane into a bike lane. Most of them weren’t being used, they were just wasting space. An election or two later a major study was done and many of the bike lanes were turned back into car lanes again.
They should be clear about the criteria, but if a similar situation has happened it makes sense to roll some of it back.
Over here in Victoria, people have been complaining non stop since the start of putting in protected bike lanes. We have a really good connected network now, but at the start when the first lane went in, there was such an uproar about this useless short lane that went nowhere before the network had even been built. It was pretty amusing to watch the idiots speak out like that about the short lane.
In our case the lanes were in for quite a few years. As I mentioned, we cycled through a couple of city councils before enough of the politicians that had spearheaded the initiative were gone and the new ones could do a study without feeling like their reputations were on the line.
And I should note, for those who are downvoting me, that I’m simply describing what happened. I ride my bike, I like bike lanes, but if bike lanes get put in bad places then popular support for bike lanes in general is harmed. If you like bike lanes too then you should be advocating for them to be placed where it’s optimal for bike lanes to exist, not to place them in every possible location regardless of utility.
Ford yet again seems to be the center of some questionable decisions that favour big corporations as opposed to the people of Ontario.
Some items include:
Trying to change zoning on protected green belt land to allow developers to build single family home subdivisions. The land was purchased by developers in anticipation to the change in zoning.
Releasing a liquor map to help individuals find alcohol, while a liquor stike was happening (somewhat a slap in the face for union workers TBH). This coincided with his push to get liquor into convince stores and corner stores while at the same time breaking a contract that would have expired in two years costing tax payers millions.
Killing a proposed recycling programs that would benefit the people of Ontario by making stores responsible to accept back recyclable materials. This program was ment to shift the cost of recycling from tax payers to corporations and business in a effort to push them to limit the amount of packaging used for products. The program was to function very similar to the Ontario Beer Store that takes back cans and glass bottles. (Unfortunately the future of the beer store recycling program is also up in the air)
Potential covering up of the completion schedule for new transite lines that were scheduled to be completed 2020.
The sudden shutdown of the Ontario Science Center due to a structural report stating a small section of roof might collapse within one of the buildings. The report presented no immediate danger but press conferences and Ford himself called the building a death trap. Many schools roofs in Ontario were built in the same way and are nearing end of life, no action or plan has been put forward.
The Ontario Place being leased and redeveloped into a luxury spa. This also coincided with the Ontario Science Center being moved to Ontario Place. The reasoning for this is that the Ford Government is contractually obligated to build a mega parking garage for the luxury spa. To justify the building of the garage it is to be shared between the new location for the Ontario Science Center and the Spa.
I love the smell of polite corruption in the morning!